Confederate Month: A Conservative Take
Words Alfredo Torres
Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 7:32 am
If Governor McDonnell’s intention in re-decreeing April to be Confederate Month in Virginia was to divide the Commonwealth, then he can proudly display a Mission Accomplished sign outside his office window. Within minutes of the declaration, folks were yelling “Foul!” only to be answered by other folks yelling “Foul!” at the first folks, who in turn re-upped their howls only to be. . .The clamor continues to this day and will probably trickle on into May and taint the beginning of what looks to be a glorious summer. In an attempt to get some perspective on this issue, AltDaily called upon two writers—one conservative, one liberal—to get their two cents on the issue. While they certainly don’t agree about a lot of things, what is surprising here is how much they do agree on. Take this as a sign such divisiveness is unnecessary and may someday be gone with the wind.
- David Paul Kleinman
There seems to be a lot of people who are outraged at this, and I’m trying to understand why.
Don't we ignore Indian massacres when we fly the stars and stripes?
The South has as much a right to be proud of their heritage as anyone else does. Does that mean they have to be proud of slavery? Of course it doesn’t, and many Southerners are ashamed of that part of their past. Does that mean they shouldn’t celebrate all the other things that make them proud to be southerners? When the North won the war, that didn’t mean the South lost its right to be proud of whom they are. Let us remember the War Between the States was not fought on the grounds of slavery, but on the grounds of states’ rights. There were many abolitionists in the South and many people in the North who could have cared less if the slaves were freed or not. The North did not go to war to free slaved men; the North went to war because it wanted the resources of the South. This isn’t anything new, and anyone who is educated and can pick up a book can find out these things.
The war wasn’t about slavery; it was about industrial vs. agrarian. The “modern” industrial North vs. the “farmers” of the South. Why should a group of people who want to celebrate a shared past be denied because of one sin, albeit a big one, but one nonetheless?
There is more to the old South than slavery. Like Mark Twain.
Let’s go by that standard. The South should not be allowed to celebrate Confederate History Month because of slavery. One sin by your group, and you are out. No cookies for you. Now, let us take a look at who else should not be raising up their flag in pride also. Mexican Americans fly the Mexican Flag, yet they not only killed some of Americas greatest heroes in San Antonio, Texas but also descend from religious tribes that performed human sacrifices. We don’t bring that up anymore. We don’t define Mexicans that way. The proud Italian people are allowed to display their pride, but we don’t talk about how they fed the lions in the Coliseum with some tasty Christian flesh or aligned themselves with what many consider the most evil man who ever lived in Adolf Hitler.
The North itself isn’t held to the same standard for having massacred countless Native Americans in their ever expanding quest toward the west. African-Americans never talk about the fact that it was conquering tribes in Africa who would sell the defeated tribes into slavery. At least those they didn’t kill outright. Yet they raise the flag of their ancestors with pride. We let all of Europe have its past without ever bringing up that they were all involved in slavery. Every country had slaves. Yet that isn’t brought up.
The South has reason to be proud of its past, present and future. They have reason to come from a line that has brought about one of the premier Army generals of WWII in Omar Bradley, the premier Navy Admiral of WWII Chester Nimitz, America’s best loved humorist Will Rogers, one of the greatest writers of all time in Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, the king of rock and roll Elvis Presley and no less than 14 American presidents. Let them be proud of everything else that is part of their past. After all, there was so much more than slavery going on in the South back then, and now.
For a somewhat more “moderate” take, check out Leona Baker’s story.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
For over 7 years, Alfredo Torres helped spread joy, laughter and music over the local airwaves. Getting his start as a regular on the Mike and Bob show, he took his talents to his own, "Alfredo Torres Debacale," before moving on to 100.5 Max FM's Locals Lounges where he featured the most talented local rock bands in the Hampton Roads area. He went on to host a successful video blog for Port Folio Weekly and currently is featured on Bob's Boneyard, a podcast staring himself along with Bob Fresh and Manny Fresh formally of the Mike and Bob show and Torres vs Zombies, a zombie survival podcast. He has been there, done that and has the T-shirt to prove it, even if the T-shirt doesn't fit anymore. Widely respected for his quick wit, knowledge of music and zombies, and a passion for local artist, The Silver Fox doesn't follow the politically correct path.
Other posts by Alfredo Torres.
Other posts by Alfredo Torres.
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Your piece is as historically inaccurate as it is grammatically incorrect. The war certainly was about slavery.
It’s the South it. Not the South they.
It’s Samuel Clemens, not Clemmons. And he was born in Missouri, not the plantation South. It’s Will Rogers, not Rodgers. He was born in Oklahoma.
Bradley was born in Missouri, not exactly the South (not that World War II generals have anything to do with the Civil War). Missouri sent far more troops to the Union than it did the Confederacy.
I find myself humming the chorus from the old Randy Newman song, “Rednecks.”
Editor’s note: The spelling error’s cited in this comment have been changed; all else remains to reflect the writer’s intent.
Hmmmmmmm, yeah of course you want to believe it was about slavery. Again, lets say that it was about slavery, are you condemning all the other cultures, races and religions for their sins? Are you crying about the Germans, The Chinese, or anyone else? Course not. Are you denying them their heritage? Of course you aren’t. As far as the issue of Missouri, I quote from Wikipedia,
“A more complex situation surrounds the Missouri Secession. In Missouri the majority of the legislature and the governor passed an ordinance of secession.[18] However, this occurred after a standing constitutional convention declared the legislature and governor void after Federal troops marched on and took over the capital. Missouri, since the Union already controlled most of it, was exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation that outlawed slavery elsewhere. However, the standing State constitutional convention repealed slavery in Missouri before Federal constitutional amendments passed. The Confederacy recognized the pro-Confederate claimants in both Kentucky and Missouri”
As far as grammar, you got me on one hit. Spelling isn’t grammar. Hence you get points taken off for both spelling AND grammar when you turn in a paper in college. You know that institute of higher learning? And so I can’t spell. Are you hitting the editors of this site for not catching them either? Yeah, didn’t think so.
BTW, if your gonna hit me on spelling, you should have caught Ken instead of King. Gettem all or don’t bother to bring it up.
@ Jim:
The American Civil War is only “certainly about slavery” these days it seems so others can justify their hatred for the culture of the South and it’s inhabitants. I think you’d be hard pressed to find many legitimate historians that would reduce the Civil War to the issue of slavery, let alone to one issue at all. With a little bit of academic research, it seems that slavery was no more an issue than things like state’s rights, economic and ideological shifts, and a cultural propensity to dislike that which is foreign (North v. South; American v. Irish/Chinese[early to mid 19th century]; or even our culture being fearful of technology like the development of Television in the 50s or the internet in more modern times).
Popular Ignorance has twisted history into defining the Civil War as a war over slavery and has perverted the South into imbecilic racists.
So, your bloviated response about grammar and spelling and “historical inaccuracy” is nothing more than a perpetuation of a stereotype, which seems to manifest an underlying prejudice of your own; furthermore, it is entirely counter-productive to civil discourse over an issue that clearly suggests a need for an education that clarifies “reality” in a more objective way.
If you have not already, I encourage you to sit down and watch every stunning, awe-inspiring minute of Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary. Visually, it is probably one of if not THE, best analyses of the Civil War to which I’ve ever been exposed.
This arguments this poster cites are completely ridiculous.
First is the notion that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. This notion is absurd. While the Union did not fight to free the slaves (they fought to preserve the Union), it’s unambiguous historical fact that the southern states seceded over slavery. The only four states to publish Declarations of the Causes of Secession addressed slavery as the sole reason for secession.
Excerpts:
Georgia: The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
Mississippi: Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
South Carolina: The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Texas: Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?
Second, celebrating Confederate History Month is not celebrating Southern Heritage. Celebrating Southern Heritage Month would be celebrating Southern Heritage. Celebrating the Confederacy is celebrating an act of treason against the United States which was, by the statements of the very men who formed it, primary instituted to protect the institution of slavery. Mexico and Italy were not formed on the basis of human sacrifice or throwing Christians to the lions, respectively. The Confederacy *was* formed to protect slavery.
To carry your analogy a bit further, examine Germany. Many people of German descent celebrate their culture and heritage throughout the world. Yet would “Nazi History Month” be welcomed with open arms in Germany the same way “Confederate History Month” is welcomed in the South? Of course not. The Germans have the good sense to be ashamed of themselves for what they did under the Nazi regime. It’s a damn same we Southerners don’t.
“Are you crying about the Germans”
I was unaware the Germans has a Nazi Month to commemorate all of those Germans who sacrificed their lives for their country’s cause. There are plenty of people who will quickly point out that Hitler built roads and other fine municipalities, but I don’t know if those things are what people think of primarily. You can’t marginalize the big picture for the sake of small items. Killing Jews was the one sin of the Nazis so should they be content with all the other things that went right?
The state’s right’s issue inability to adapt to changing times. I can’t blame them for trying, but I can blame them for not getting over something that has damaged some psyches so much they still reenact losing. I can blame them for not moving on and doing great things. It’s like someone who never got over a bad break up and still keeps old pictures on the night stand. Move on. Achieve more. Leave the Confederacy behind. It’s not rising again, no matter what wingnut it trying to sell on any given day. Seriously, she’s not as pretty as she once was and we can do better. All these things do is divide and impede progress.
I have news for you, people in the North aren’t running around 145 years later spraying champagne all over themselves like they just won yesterday. There is no Union history month. The only Yankees celebrating like that reside in the Bronx and I hope we can all agree to detest those guys. (It’s baseball season; I couldn’t resist.)
The “states rights not slavery” claim as basis for the Civil War is a pretty circular one, when you think about it. Which state right were the Southern states claiming when they seceded? Uh, the right to keep slaves.
Also lost in this debate is the clear and unambiguous fact that no matter how you cut it, the secession of the Southern states was in fact an armed rebellion against the duly-elected United States government. They may have been gallant, they may have been brave, they may have been fighting for their way of life, they may have been many things, but above all, they were rebels engaged in treasonous revolt. The only reason the leaders and generals of the CSA (and their soldiers) were NOT punished en masse by the “tyrannical” United States government was that Federal authorities wisely judged it better to issue a general amnesty to virtually all who had taken up arms against their country. Today’s extreme opponents of Federal authorities (Teabaggers, looking at you here) should recall this as just another example of the lack of “tyranny” in our national government. But it’s exactly this lenience that allows the mythology of the Confederacy as some sort of golden last call of a bygone era, instead of a bloody and traitorous uprising, based almost entirely on the preservation of the enslavement of one race by another, entirely abhorrent to the values at the core of our republic.
He is absolutely correct(sarcasm). Using that logic, you should have no problem with Muslim-Americans celebrating 9/11 in a negative sense. We gain nothing out of Confederate History Month. All it is going to do is divide the state. It’s true, there is no Union History Month. They just need to let it go. The South lost ok, but the South was still the South regardless. If it were Civil War History Month or Confederate History Day, I’d feel better, but a month is just far too much. As a black man, I can’t see this as right considering I would probably have zero rights and have no opportunity to pursue my Master’s at a tier-1 program as I’m currently doing. I took an African-American History class at Norfolk State University, and we did mention that Africans sold Africans to be slaves, so for someone to say that we never mention that is false and shows that they shouldn’t speak on something they know nothing about. I mean if it makes White-Americans feel better about themselves for it to be said let me know, and I’ll mention it everytime I have a discussion about race with White-Americans. Most educated black people know this fact if you’ve ever bothered to discuss it with black people. Notice how I called myself a black man because I’ve never been to Africa so I’m not African-American. I am American with African descent. Africans didn’t want African-Americans to go to Africa, so why should I claim them? If you have a right to celebrate Confederate History Month, I have a right to disapprove of it. The North might not of cared if we were slaves or not, but they didn’t enslave us to the extent of the South either. Black people didn’t try to escape to the North for no reason.
Reading this, I’m thinking that it is hard to point to any nexus of power throughout history that is completely untarnished. I think the reason that we are willing to forgive certain groups and continue to revile others has to do with each group’s response to whatever indiscretion or atrocity they committed.
I think dialogue about what the Confederate period meant to the South, the US, and the rest of the world is fascinating. Arguing about whether the South should be “proud” in comparison to the North, Italy, Africa, or anyone else is probably an endless (read: worthless) debate…
What the South did in the aftermath of the war, during Reconstruction, has a lot to do with how far we’ve come or have left to travel, to distance ourselves from slavery. I think what people are reacting to, more than the historical debate, are entrenched racist attitudes that prevail here. No matter how strongly and intelligently Alfredo argues his case, he’s working against the fact that people trumpeting racist slogans still use the Confederate flag as their calling card.
We can be “proud” of this from a free speech perspective, but that pride has more to do with the Revolutionary War than the Civil War, doesn’t it?
Are other articles edited for spelling? If so, then why was this one not? The errors are glaring. As a Virginian, a Southerner, I believe that the Governor’s proclamation was exceedingly ill conceived–as a Virginian, and a Southerner,I wrap my self in the quilts my Mawmaw and hers and hers made from whatever they had, not in the Confederate flag…but I am also so fucking weary of folks who believe they are entitled to rub my nose in their own assumptions, prejudices, misconceptions and ignorance about who I am, who my people are and were, about my customs and language, and even about my intellect. Unless you and your people are Martians, we all are heirs to responsibility for some heinous, tragic,injustice or another perpetuated on this planet that should makes us ashamed to point our fingers.
*perpetrated *make us…my editing…my intent…
Got to tell you guys that i love the debate. As far as my spelling goes, I could give a shit. I’m a bad speller. Sue me. If you have to bring up my spelling to make your case, you’ve already lost since your upset enough to comment on the writing and the spelling.
I love how people pick and choose who gets forgiven and for what they are forgive for. You can forgive anyone as long as you don’t feel they have offend you and your cause whatever your cause maybe.
Renard, the fact that you took a class on African history and learned that africans sold conquered tribes into slavery is well and good. Did you know that before you took that class? How many uneducated blacks know that fact? How many uneducated blacks know that the south had slaves? Big difference. My point in asking this is that if your going to condemn the south for slavery, condemn the whole pipeline. Condemn the english for what they did in India, which lasted well into the 20th century.
So since the south only cared about slavery and not about states rights then the whole tariff thing that was hampering the south so that the industrial north could continue to make money was nothing huh? In case you didn’t know, from wiki
“One major and continuous strain on the union, from roughly 1820 through the Civil War, was the issue of trade and tariffs. Heavily dependent upon trade, the almost entirely agricultural and export-oriented South imported most of its manufactured goods from Europe or obtained them from the North. The North, by contrast, had a growing domestic industrial economy that viewed foreign trade as competition. Trade barriers, especially protective tariffs, were viewed as harmful to the Southern economy, which depended on exports.
In 1828, the Congress passed protective tariffs to benefit trade in the northern states, but that were detrimental to the South. Southerners vocally expressed their tariff opposition in documents such as the South Carolina Exposition and Protest in 1828, written in response to the “Tariff of Abominations.” Exposition and Protest was the work of South Carolina senator and former vice president John C. Calhoun, formerly an advocate of protective tariffs and internal improvements at federal expense.
South Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance declared both the tariff of 1828 and the 1832 null and void within the state borders of South Carolina. This action initiated the Nullification Crisis. Passed by a state convention on November 24, 1832, it led, on December 10, to President Andrew Jackson’s proclamation against South Carolina, which sent a naval flotilla and a threat of sending federal troops to enforce the tariffs.”
Hmmmm seems a little more than just slavery there.
And again, as far as my spelling, Im a radio guy, not a writer. If all you really have to comment on is my spelling, then save your breath.
Alfredo, I actually did know before the class because my mother also had taken the same course. I was just using my class as an example of how multiple people do know the fact, but it is our job to educate other black people in my age group and younger that want to listen. When I say uneducated, I was referring to the ones that don’t want to be educated more so than the ones that just don’t know because no one has told them. It should be more of a concern that this information isn’t talked about in schools because parts of African-American history is important. My kids will no the unbias truth of their heritage.
Just so everybody knows, I’m not a bitter black person I don’t agree with this just like I don’t agree with the Black Panther Party and some of the stuff Malcom X said. I’ve heard nothing but people defend the Confederacy but never heard an apology for slavery. For example a person supporting the Confederacy saying, I’m sorry slavery happened, and I wish my ancestors never did it, but I do love my heritage. I have never heard that which would soften the wound which is why this whole thing rubs me the wrong way because they are still ingnorant to why a lot people, black or white, are upset.
There are some good thoughts here. But none of them are about preserving Confederate History. Slavery was horrible. it not only enslaved bodies. It enslaved minds. If men were not so stupid that they didn’t recognize their shared humanity, they had to use twisted logic to justify the exploitation of slaves.
Why don’t these freaks seek to honor Jim Crow? I can see Governor Cuccinelli’s proclamation in four years. “Jim Crow Virginia was a better time. We would do well to return to an era when each race could receive the true dignity it deserves. We, here in Virginia think so much of honor the special qualities of each race we will segregate them to honor them, equality of course!”
What a load of crap. Jim Crow was about violent racism. Virginia roiled in lynchings, race hatred, and ingnorant heartless cruelty. Jim Crow was the sequel to slavery. Don’t waste your breath telling me about Confederate heroes. They were traitors. Some were brilliant traitors. But traitors nonetheless. And their legacy? A devastated region, a resentful, sullen society that has been rife with denial for a long, long time.
So why is McDonnell pulling this out of the sewer and waving it in our face? It is an intentional attempt to deny our common future. His Virginia includes privilege, and elitism for the annointed and a more violent, impoverished future for most. So why not celebrate Confederate History? You may want to think of it as a future to look forward to after our masters drag us back to feudalism.
I take the blame for spelling mistakes. The editor should catch that stuff.
My point on spelling should have been obvious: if you can’t be bothered to check the correct spelling of the names you cite, then you can’t be trusted to check your historical facts. And clearly you didn’t.
The argument the Civil War wasn’t about slavery is utterly specious. And your argument that other cultures did awful things in dissimilar situations is merely a lame deflection.
But jumping to the conclusion that people who say that somehow condemn the South is as illogical as the rest of your argument. There were noble men and women on the side of the Confederacy and there were scoundrels on the Union side. The North was as racist in many ways as the South and remained so long after the war (arguably to this day).
That doesn’t mean there’s any justification in 2010 to celebrate Confederate Heritage Month.
So Im guessing you didnt read the whole tariff thing then Jim. and again, checking facts, which I did, and which you would see if you read, has nothing to do with spelling, which I said I was bad at. (for all you grammar nazis, I know its a run on sentence, and that I started a sentence with a lower case letter, didnt add the ‘ mark on, and spelled nazis with a lower case n and not a capital one.)
Alfred…did you see where Jim forgot to hang “-ing” on condemn…*evil grin*…
My point is…McDonnell was playing to his political base…it was a political, if ill concieved thing to do, and for which he attempted to make amends…his error is not unlike very many other ill conceived political paybacks to special interests no matter a politician’s ilk…Jim, like so many other sanctimonious folks…(of which I have been one) took the opportunity to malign us all…which we really do get tired of hearing and feel is an attack based on either “Yankee smugness” or trendy southern shamed facedness…to his credit, Jim backed off a bit…did I tell yall, my Mawmaw always told me my belly button is where the Yankee shot me…